“She sneaks away from time to time,” an old man’s voice said. “Won’t be gone long, probably.”
I peeked around the corner to see an elderly, bald African American man wearing gray wool slacks, a dress shirt, and a black and white striped bow tie. He sat in a cane rocking chair. His booth was filled with small carved wooden figures—mostly animals. But there were also carved trees, human figures, and kitchen utensils like spoons and spatulas. The sign over his booth said “Myles Mason, Woodcarver.”
“Hello,” I said.
“Good afternoon,” the man said, smiling brightly. “I’m Myles.”
“I see that,” I said, pointing to the sign and smiling.
Myles chuckled. I introduced myself and Colin.
Colin shook Myles’ hand. I couldn’t see Colin’s eyes because of his sunglasses, but I knew they’d be bright, happy about all the visual potential Myles and his booth offered.
“Nice place you got here,” I said. “I like those birds you made.”
“My wife likes them, too, because they keep me busy,” he said with a laugh. He picked up his knife and a small block of wood—maybe cherry, and began shaving thin strips from it. The shavings, delicate curls of wood, tumbled into a basket by his feet.
“Can I interview you for a feature story I’m writing about Denver?” I asked.
I explained more about my travel feature. For a moment, Myles hesitated, but then Colin stepped in.
“Jae never writes anything negative in her travel stories,” he said. “She just writes about people and the work and hobbies they do, what makes them interesting.”
“That sounds fine,” Myles said with a nod.
I asked him where he learned woodcarving. His uncle, a rancher, taught him.
“It’s just something I’ve done in my spare time,” Myles said. “But when I retired from my job at the water plant, well, maybe I went overboard.”
Myles laughed and shook his head. Colin kneeled and took a photo of Myles with his sparkling eyes.
“I had carvings on every flat surface in our house. My wife said I had to get rid of some—it was taking her all day to get the dusting done. So my grandson arranged to sell them over the computer.”
“How did that work out?”
“It worked me out,” he laughed. “Running in circles to the post office.”
Myles’ block of wood was taking shape now. There was a round center and two tapered ends.
He continued, “Then my sister-in-law, she’s a bargain hunter, thought I should have a shop here.”
“You like it here?”
“Oh yeah, the food’s good. That booth over there sells the best burritos in the state. And people here are friendly—for the most part,” his voice lowered when he said that and he glanced sideways at Mary’s booth.
“So, Mary Pettigrew, it she tough to get along with?”
“Well, I don’t want to say anything unkind in your article, but between you and me, she’s different.”
I smiled. “Different” is the generic passive-aggressive insult all my older relatives use, too. It’s not outright mean, but it gets the point across.
“I met her once, I agree she’s … well, she is different,” I didn’t want Myles to think I was tactless.
He shrugged. “She keeps to herself. I gave up trying to make conversation with her a year ago. Then there’s that brother of hers, maybe stepbrother, I don’t know. He comes around. Sometimes they work together okay, sometimes they argue. I don’t like him.”
“What do they argue about?”
“What do people always argue about?” he asked. “Money. I guess there’s some valuable antiques in their family. I’ve heard them bickering about glass, coins, stamps, furniture, you name it.”
I heard a soft whirring noise behind me and looked up at the top of the tent as it seemed to vibrate. Maybe Mary was back and opening her curtains. I asked Myles for his contact information so I could get in touch with him when the story came out.
As he told me his telephone number, he put the finishing touches on his carving. It was a bird with a round belly and a pointy beak. It had a long forked tail. Instead of feet, there was a notch carved into the bottom of its torso.
“Hold your finger out like this,” Myles said, stretching his index finger out horizontally.
I did as he instructed. He set the bird on my finger. The angle and size of its tail created a counterbalance perfectly with its body, so it rocked gently on my finger.
“That’s for you. No charge,” he said. “Now you have a new friend.”
I smiled widely while I watched the bird balance on my finger. I felt like throwing my arms around Myles’ neck and kissing his cheek, but I resisted.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Thank you.”
I slipped the bird into my bag as we said goodbye. Colin and I stepped over to Mary’s booth.
It was obvious Mary remembered me. She looked startled when I said hello to her, bobbling a glass bowl she’d been polishing with a towel.
“Oh. You,” she said with an abrupt tone.
“Hi, Miss Pettigrew,” I said, attempting to disarm her with a friendly tone.
“What do you want?”
I guess she wasn’t buying the friendly tone thing. “I’m still working on my coverage of the Bunny Malone investigation. I came across some records that you had a business disagreement with her.”
“Lots of people had business disagreements with her,” Mary said. “Do your research. Swindling and exploiting people is in her blood.”
“You think her parents exploited people?”
“Mine owners aren’t exactly known for their fair treatment of the working man.”
“What were your problems with Bunny?”
“Read the reports,” Mary said. “I’m not getting into that now.”
She wasn’t going to talk to me, so there was no point in being delicate.
“Where were you when Bunny was killed?” I asked.
Mary sighed impatiently and rolled her eyes. “I was at the saloon playing on the slots. I remember hearing the sirens.”
I nodded and pretended to be interested in a silver goblet on one of her tables.
“My mom would like this,” I lied, stalling for time. “This is a neat place. You run it by yourself?”
“My stepbrother helps sometimes—just for extra money. He doesn’t know about antiques though.”
I looked down and saw Colin’s shoes on the other side of the tent cloth. Initially, he had come into Mary’s booth with me, but then he seemed to lurk away. Maybe he understood that she would be less threatened if there were just one person approaching her, not two.
“Was Gus working that day? When Bunny was killed?”
“He’s usually there,” she said.
“But do you remember seeing him that day?”
“I don’t know, probably.”
I remembered how she’d nodded at him when she walked into the saloon the other day. “You’re friends?”
“Not really. We say hello. I come in there to play on the machines sometimes when I’m waiting.”
“Waiting for Bunny’s store to open?”
“Yeah, and other secondhand shops. There’s a lot of places like that in Mission Key. It’s where I find some of my merchandise. I polish it up and resell it here,” Mary said. “And sometimes, if I have something I can’t get rid of, Bunny would buy it from me. Always lowballs me, of course. Sometimes it’s easier to throw something in the trash than sell it to her for what little she offers.”
Mary wasn’t sure she’d seen Gus that day. I wondered if the police had checked his alibi. I thanked Mary and said goodbye. She mumbled in response without looking up from the silver flatware she was rearranging in a wooden box.
I found Colin at a nearby booth. As we passed by Mary’s booth on our way to the exit, I noticed her leaning across one of her tables, watching Colin and I. When she saw me looking at her, she put her head down and adjust
ed a vase on the table in front of her.
“Well, hopefully that will get Quinn off my back,” I said to Colin as we walked back toward the field where we’d parked.
“What did you find out?”
“That Gus might not have an alibi.”
“Does Mary?”
“She says she was playing the slots,” I said. “I believe her. But I’m going to ask Quinn to check the records with the state. Those machines are all online with the gaming commission. They watch them to make sure the payouts are what they’re supposed to be and there’s no cheating. They might be on camera, too.”
It was mid-afternoon now and the sun was intense. I was pushing the sleeves of my sweater up as far as they would go when I felt my phone vibrate in my bag. I grabbed it and looked at the screen. It said the caller was Franciscan General Hospital.
I felt my knees wobble. It had to be my mom. Hopefully it was just another one of her stomach problems or alcohol poisoning. Hopefully it wasn’t a car accident.
I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of Colin, but I had no choice—I couldn’t make myself ignore this call.
The caller was a woman named Natalia Inez. She was a nurse in the emergency department. I stopped walking and let my head hang. I stared at the dusty mashed-down grass that was the path to the flea market parking lot. I could feel Colin looking at me. I turned away from him slightly.
“Miss Lovejoy, you are listed as the emergency contact for Angela Delong.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s my mom.”
“We have your mom here. She’s okay, but she’s not really able to give us any information right now. I was hoping you could help me with her medical history.”
“What happened?”
“She has a GI bleed, that’s when …”
“You don’t have to explain it. She’s had those before. And pancreatitis.”
“Okay,” Natalia said. “She passed out at work at the mall. Some shoppers called an ambulance. She’s stable now, but very groggy. I was just hoping you could tell me about any medications she takes, allergies, things like that.”
“My mom and I aren’t close. She’s an alcoholic. But yeah, I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Okay,” Natalia said. “That answers my first question. Her blood alcohol level wasn’t extremely high, but, you know, for someone at work in the middle of the day, you’d expect it to be zero. Hers was just a touch above the legal limit to drive. Also her liver and pancreatic enzymes are abnormal.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice flat.
Now that I knew my mother wasn’t dead, my legs felt like they would be able to carry me. I continued walking toward the car. Colin continued too, several steps behind me.
I told Natalia what I knew of my mom’s history—the couple minor surgeries she’s had, the anxiety medications she’d taken and promptly abandoned in favor of alcohol, some stomach problems, and a penicillin allergy.
“She’s basically stable though?” I asked Natalia.
“Yes. It looks like she might need a blood transfusion, so she’ll probably be admitted for at least a couple days. And at some point, our social worker will talk to her about her options as far as alcohol dependence rehabilitation.”
“She might go,” I said. “She does okay with quitting drinking temporarily. It’s staying sober more than a week or two that’s the problem.”
My mom was young. She’d had me at nineteen. So far, it seemed like her body was able to cope, at least in some way, with the abuse she dished out.
“Nurse Inez,” I said. “I know my mom puts me down as her emergency contact, but I’m not responsible for her. I’ve seen her through several rounds of rehab, and I just can’t be involved with her anymore.”
“I understand completely,” she said. “Should I remove your name and telephone number from her chart?”
I sighed and covered my eyes with my free hand, trying to rub away the tears I felt forming. I’d stopped walking again. Now I could feel both Colin and the nurse, waiting in patient silence.
“No,” I said, my voice shaking. “You can…” I stopped to take a deep breath and try to control the crying that had started, “You can leave my name in her records.”
I said goodbye to the nurse and let my phone slip back into my bag.
As we continued walking, Colin a few steps behind me, I focused all my energy on fighting back tears. My cheeks felt like they were burning, while the rest of my body was hot, too. Every time I tried to fight back a sob, my throat seemed to squeeze and knot.
Despite the fact that I’d managed to get myself two thousand miles away from my mom, she and her drinking were still trampling all over my life. Colin had heard everything. And I couldn’t stop myself from repeating, in my mind, my half of the conversation—the parts Colin had heard: My mom’s an alcoholic. I’m not responsible for her.
I wanted to say something snarky or funny. Something to show Colin that I was all right, that he shouldn’t think of me differently now. I couldn’t think of anything to say though. From the first time my mom forgot to pick me up from my soccer game, to the first time I’d had to pick her up after a DUI arrest, I’d never figured out how to stop being ashamed.
“We’re this way,” Colin said softly. He touched my back to get my attention and gently guided me to make a right turn.
I hadn’t been paying any attention to where I was walking. Even when I turned and starting walking in the correct direction, Colin kept his hand on my back. I started to feel dizzy. I realized that, in my effort to fight back tears, I’d been holding my breath.
My attempt to take a deep breath, to steady myself, resulted in what sounded like a shaky sigh. I reached toward my eyes again.
Colin stopped walking. His hand, still on my back, exerted the slightest pressure, pulling me toward him. He stepped closer to me and wrapped me in a hug.
For a moment, I froze. I wanted to push him away, to tell him I’m fine. But when my cheek touched his chest, the soft fabric of his t-shirt covering toned muscle, all of my stubborn determination started to melt away. I could feel him breathing and hear his heartbeat.
My arms found their way around Colin’s body until my hands were resting on the small of his back. I cried for maybe a minute. Then I didn’t feel like crying any more. I stopped feeling dizzy and shaky too.
Finally, I let my arms fall away from his body as I straightened my posture and took a step back. He looked at me as he let me go, one hand lingering on my upper arm.
“I’m okay,” I said. I started to attempt a fake smile, then decided not to bother.
“Okay,” Colin said.
We continued walking toward the car. This time, he stayed beside me instead of following behind. Then, when we got to our rental car, he opened the passenger side door for me.
I smiled a little, thinking about Quinn and how she would react if I told her Colin had just hugged me. But I knew I wouldn’t be telling her about it. That needed to stay between Colin and me.
“Where to?” Colin asked as he navigated us out of the parking lot and onto the highway back toward downtown Denver.
“Let’s go see that Edgar Bachman, the attorney for Bunny’s estate. I guess we’re supposed to make arrangements with him for going to the funeral in the morning. And I’d just like to interview him, see what he thinks of the investigation and stuff.”
“Did Lance say you have to do the funeral story?”
“No, but I’m here, so I figured I may as well cover it,” I said. “I’ll have lots of time before we have to go to the airport in the evening.”
He smiled. “One more news story, huh?”
“Yes. And that’s it. I can’t wait to get back to travel features.”
“I think you like it,” he said, teasing notes in his voice.
“Shut up.”
| Thirteen
“Can this be right?” I asked, looking from my phone screen to the glass door in front of me.
Colin shrugge
d. “You’ve seen her shop and her apartment. Shabby must be Bunny’s thing.”
I’d expected the law office of Edgar Bachman, the attorney representing Bunny’s multi-million-dollar estate, to be in a downtown high-rise. But, here we were, standing in front of the door to a second-story walk-up office over a dry cleaner. Chipped gold lettering on the glass door said “E. Bachman, Esq.”
“So weird,” I muttered as I pulled the door open and Colin and I began climbing the creaky wooden stairs.
At the top of the staircase, we rounded a corner and entered a tiny lobby decorated with gray Berber carpeting and wood and vinyl armchairs. The walls were dark wood paneling.
A plump white-haired woman sat at a metal desk, her back to the wall. Her head was slumped forward and she was snoring. Colin’s lips were pressed together tightly as he fought to hold in a laugh.
I walked up to the woman’s desk and cleared my throat, hoping that would wake her up. But she kept snoring.
“Excuse me?” I said quietly. Then I repeated myself a little louder.
A door on the opposite wall opened and a man with disheveled gray hair and thick glasses walked out.
“Aw, Mom,” he said, shaking his head. Then he turned to Colin and me and said, “Sorry about that. She was so excited when they interviewed me on TV the other day, she insisted on coming to the office with me in case any more camera crews showed up. I guess all the commotion has taken a lot out of her.”
He held out his hand. “I’m Edgar Bachman. This is Rosalind Bachman,” he said, gesturing toward his mother, who continued to snore.
I introduced myself and Colin.
“You want to go to the funeral tomorrow? You didn’t have to come by. Everyone else just had their secretaries call.”
“Well, I wanted to talk to you, also,” I said. “I was hoping to get a little background for my next story.”
He invited us into his office, which was decorated in the same 1978-budget motif. He wrote our names on a couple small forms and slid them across his desk toward Colin and me.
“You can come to the funeral, but you have to use the east entrance of the cathedral. From there, you’ll go straight to the child care room, where you can watch the services on closed circuit television. That way the media and the mourners won’t really see each other.”
Assignment Denver: The Case of the Eccentric Heiress: Jae Lovejoy Cozy Mystery One (Jae Lovejoy Cozy Mysteries Book 1) Page 10